I believe that the amount of reading assigned to students over summer break should be decreased to only 1 book. However, I know that some people may oppose this view. For example, some English teachers may propose that reading three books keeps our brains mentally stimulated all throughout the summer. While I can see and agree with this point, I think that assigning one book is perfectly enough to keep students’ brains thinking. Assigning one 400-page book would allow students to plan out how much they need to read a week to keep their brains stimulated over the period of summer break. For example, one could plan to read 40 pages a week over 10 weeks to get the book done while keeping their brain thinking. Assigning three books is also not an efficient way to keep our brains stimulated. All it does is allow students to worry about how much they have to read over break and then cram in all the reading within the last weeks. This leads to forgetting information about the book because of the stress and cramming. While I agree with the argument of keeping our minds stimulated throughout the summer, I believe assigning three books is not the way to go about it.

At Archmere, in the summer we are typically assigned more challenging books to read. This is because we are an academically competitive school and pride ourselves on preparing students for college. However, assigning these harder books makes it especially difficult for students, considering they have no help from teachers in the summer to guide them. Miriam Piotinsky of Education world writes, “In the summer, students typically work in isolation. Without the expertise and support of teachers, it can be hard to make meaning of unfamiliar texts, especially ones that include less accessible language or a greater degree of complexity.” This statement relates especially to us, the students here at Archmere. The books we are assigned contain “a great degree of complexity.” For example, this past summer the rising junior class’s mandatory book was “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen. This book contained a lot of unfamiliar words and made it especially difficult to understand them without a teacher around to help. Archmere students are not alone in feeling this way. In an article published on the Boulder High school school newspaper, staff writer Ella Gibney writes, “students focus more on annotating the novel rather than being able to actually enjoy the literature.” Because there is no teacher around to help understand difficult words, students spend more time trying to understand words rather than enjoying the book they have been assigned. This can also present a problem when students are assigned tests on the books they read over summer. Because they spent most of their time trying to comprehend difficult words, they could easily have missed themes or important moments in the book that would be on the test they were assigned upon returning to school. 

Have you ever been assigned summer reading? If you go or went to Archmere Academy then I know you have. I also know that you weren’t psyched about how many pages of different books you had to read. Think about that time when you wanted to hang out with your friends on a hot sunny day or go relax on the beach, but your mom says no you have to read because you have three due in the upcoming school year. Think about those last two weeks of summer where you had to squeeze in all your reading because you had the whole summer to procrastinate. We’ve all been there before and it is not fun. It is imperative we eliminate the negatives that too much summer reading brings and focus on the many positives that one book will bring.